Hyundai i10 wins hearts in compact cars market

Prices of excess 2G fierce competition in the compact car segment of the Indian market has seen Korean firm Hyundai's i10 race past Japanese rival Maruti Suzuki's Wagon R to emerge as the highest selling car in this category during the financial year ended March 31, 2010.

Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) director (marketing) Arvind Saxena said the company "sold as many as 149,242 units of the i10 in the Indian market during 2009-10, which makes it the top selling car in the over 1 litre capacity segment".

Maruti Suzuki's WagonR which had been dominating this segment until now was displaced to the second spot with sales of 144,898 units during the fiscal.

Saxena said the Bharat Stage IV compliant i20 powered by a 1.2 litre Kappa engine has achieved a mileage of 19.81 km to a litre of petrol under test conditions.

"This is the best in class ARAI- certified fuel efficiency, among petrol cars in the compact segment in India," he claimed.

Saxena said the firm is pinning hopes on the good mileage of i10 to enable it to increase its share in a cost-sensitive market. The high fuel efficiency makes the car an affordable transportation solution with a low carbon footprint for customers in India, he added.

However, Maruti Suzuki is clearly not taking the knock lying down and is pinning its hopes on the new Wagon R powered with a better K series engine and a new gear box to regain its turf in this segment.

The car, which has an aluminium engine is more fuel efficient than the older version and has been priced only marginally higher because the company wants to push for higher volumes in an increasingly competitive market.

The new Wagon R which was launched on April 23 this year carries a price tag of between Rs 3.28 and Rs 3.81 lakh across models. The increase compared to the older version works out to Rs 5,000 for the entry level model and Rs 9,000 for the top-end Vxi model.

But the Japanese company seems to feeling the heat of the competition and plans to upgrade the Alto with a new K series engine as well to stay ahead of competition.

The new version is expected to be launched during the current financial year but company officials are reluctant to disclose the exact month. HMIL's strategy of introducing its latest technology in India, when it launched the i10 for the world market from its Chennai factory in October 2007, appears to be working.

Saxena pointed out that ever since i10 made its world debut in India, it witnessed a huge demand both from the overseas as well as the domestic market.

Car buyers are headed for better choice with increased competition bringing in more models.

Big car manufacturers, such as Ford, GM and Volkswagen have also introduced compact models to gain a larger share of a market in which compact cars account for 70 per cent of total sales.

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